Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street

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268 THE PIAZZA TALES
of the enthusiasm of some natural philosophers, who
hoped, by physiological and chemical inductions, to
arrive at a knowledge of the source of life, and so qualify
themselves to manufacture and improve upon it. Much
less had he aught in common with the tribe of alchemists,
who sought, by a species of incantations, to evoke some
surprising vitality from the laboratory. Neither had he
imagined, with certain sanguine theosophists, that, by
faithful adoration of the Highest, unheard-of powers
would be vouchsafed to man. A practical materialist,
what Bannadonna had aimed at was to have been
reached, not by logic, not by crucible, not by conjura-
vice-bench and
tion, not by altars ; but by plain
hammer. In short, to solve nature, to steal into her,
to intrigue beyond her, to procure someone else to bind
her to his hand ;— these, one and all, had not been his
element or
objects ; but, asking no favours from any
any being, of himself, to rival her, outstrip her,
and rule her. He stooped to conquer. With him,
common - sense was theurgy ; machinery, miracle ;
Prometheus, the heroic name for machinist ; man, the
true God.
Nevertheless, in his initial step, so far as the experimental
automaton for the belfry was concerned, he
allowed fancy some little play ; or, perhaps, what
seemed his fancifulness was but his utilitarian ambition
collaterally extended. In figure,
the creature for the
belfry should not be likened after the human pattern,
1 nor any animal one, nor after the ideals, however wild,
\ of ancient fable, but equally in aspect as in organism
; be an original production ; the more terrible to behold,
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the better.
Such, then, were the suppositions as to the present
scheme, and the reserved intent. How, at the very
threshold, so unlooked for a catastrophe overturned all,